Shane Kargus says his brother, Adam, was `doomed? when he was incarcerated at Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London

Shane Kargus looks at a photo of his brother, Adam, who was slain in Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre Oct. 31, at a news conference announcing a class-action lawsuit against the province. Kargus is not suing. (DEREK RUTTAN / The London Free Press)

Loving and well-loved in the outside world, Adam Kargus was doomed the moment he walked into the third-world nightmare of the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC), his brother says.

“My brother died alone and with no protection and I really put the fault on the guards. I think it’s sick they were even paid for that day’s work,” Shane Kargus said Tuesday. “My brother was doomed from the start. The system failed him the moment he walked into that jail.”

For the first time, at a news conference and later in a one-on-one interview with The Free Press, a member of the Kargus family spoke publicly about the beating death of Adam Kargus on Oct. 31 at EMDC.

At times Tuesday, Shane Kargus struggled for words and at times his voice grew louder in anger.

“My brother was too good of a person to be thrown in to such an inhumane world where he had no chance to protect himself. He was relying on pretty much the guards and they failed. They failed him.”

The Kargus family is not part of a $325-million class-action lawsuit launched this week against the province on behalf of former inmates, but Shane Kargus said he felt compelled to speak out.

“There needs an overhaul of this jail. If not, it needs to be shut down,” he said.

It’s hard to believe a jail in Canada forces inmates to sleep on the floor, their heads beside toilets, because it’s crowded, Kargus said.

“Is that humane? This is not a Third-World country we’re living in. We’re living in Canada. It’s not right. My brother shouldn’t have been beaten to death and go unnoticed until the next morning. It’s disgusting and I can’t stand for it.”

WHAT HAPPENED

Adam Kargus, 29, of Sarnia, was beaten to death in a vicious attack at Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) in London on Oct. 31.

Kargus was serving a sentence for using false identification to get tax refunds and cellphones. Sources say he had been assaulted once before in Sarnia Jail before being moved to London.

He was put in a cell with Anthony Maurice George, 28, of Sarnia, whose long history of violence includes beating up fellow inmates. Sources say George had been transferred from Sarnia Jail, where he was segregated due to his violent nature.

The hours-long beating of Kargus was witnessed by inmates, but no guards, and his body dragged the next day to the showers. George is charged with second-degree murder.

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Michael Smith and Glen Johnson

Michael Smith was sentenced to four days in jail for mischief, and got his cheek slashed from jawbone to mouth.

“It was a nightmare,” he says.

Glenn Johnson was sentenced to about nine months in jail for break and enter, and was sprayed with urine, forced to hand over food and medication, and gang-beaten for not taking part in inmate-run fight nights.

“Some days I wish I was dead when I was there,” he says.

The two former inmates described Tuesday the real sentences they received at Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) in support of a $325-million, class-action lawsuit against the province launched by McKenzie Lake Lawyers in London.

“Evil is growing like a weed at Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre,” lawyer Kevin Egan said at a news conference about the suit.

The suit claims the province has failed to properly ensure health and safety of inmates at the troubled provincial jail, with overcrowding, violence and unsanitary conditions the main problems.

Egan has been fighting since the 2009 death of Londoner Randy Drysdale at EMDC for improvements to the jail, and his collection of complaints from more than 100 former inmates led to McKenzie Lake’s class action.

“The government has been aware for a very long time that there are problems with Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre and there’s an unwillingness to fix it,” Egan said. “Unless and until it is more expensive to leave it the way it is than to fix it, it’s going to continue and more people are going to be maimed, injured and killed. We need a substantial hammer in order to effect change.”

Smith was jailed July 9, 2012, after throwing a cellphone and kicking a car in a dispute with his wife.

He took advice of duty counsel and pleaded guilty so he could quickly return home and back to work as a machinist.

“As soon as I got in there I knew something wasn’t right,” Smith says. “The guards were telling me this was not a normal place, (that) the inmates have rules; they’re posted on the walls.”

Two other inmates went onto the range with him, but the inmates told the guards they didn’t want them, Smith says.

“The guards didn’t question it. They just took them out. It was like they (the guards) were being told what to do.”

Smith says he was put in a cell for the night and the next morning tried to call his boss. He asked the other inmates if he could use the phone.

“They just started screaming . . . ‘Did anybody tell you to speak? Are you supposed to speak?’ ”

Smith says he had to call his boss, so he picked up the phone. A gang of inmates rushed him and he woke up on the washroom floor, his cheek sliced open by a shard from a hard plastic tray, he says.

He says the inmates were so organized they had their own first-aid kit and told him to clean himself up and not say a word.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a nightmare.”

He waited for what seemed an hour and finally called a guard for help. He had to get plastic surgery and has permanent damage.

“Even now when I see a police officer I get a little scared. That’s where I started,” he says.

Johnson says he was beaten several times while at EMDC from May to December 2012, before being transferred.

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